A New Focus: Small, Yet Mighty

It's the end of May, and once again, I have changed routes.

By now you might see that I oscillate between drives when it comes to my writing career: should I go full speed ahead, or should I switch to another lane, or should I try taking the highway for a bit, or should I just roll to a stop and enjoy the scenery for a little while? All of these options will result in wildly different approaches to my writing, and every now and again, I cycle through them, wondering once more which of them is the better option for me.

And of course the answer is none of them. And all of them. Because it depends - on where I am in my life, on what's happening around me, on my health, and so on. But when you have choices to make, you can easily experience frustration and regret. And I've been dealing with a little bit of that recently.

Regret that I haven't published more with the time that I've had, in spite of everything life has thrown at me, and frustration at the fact that I have dozens of stories that just need to be finished and polished, and yet, they sit on my shelf waiting for... something. Waiting for me.

Frankly, I don't think this will be unfamiliar to you if you're a writer - or a creative in general. We all go through these ebbs and flows. Those moments when motivation fizzles out, the world seems unnecessarily harsh to the creative soul, and even your willpower can't see you through, and your mind is a whirlwind of What if, what if, what if...

So, I've gone back to a familiar solution: the old switcheroo. Switching it up from time to time helps me keep things fresh in my mind, and that's what I've been doing.

The May Switch-up

In the past week, I've been working on a couple of projects that I wasn't really supposed to be working on. I've revived Murder in Heliopolis and am proud to say that I've started the second draft (for real this time). I've also completed the plotting of the book, and will be adding two parts to the story to complete it. I've introduced more POVs and characters, and the second and third parts of the story will not feature Detective Laith Alazraq as a main POV, unlike the first part (which consists of the original manuscript).

That being said, while Murder in Heliopolis is something I've spent a handful of hours on this month, it's not a main project for me at the moment. Changing drives, remember? I needed to switch things up a bit - throw it all in the air for a while and focus on something else to get back my groove.

And I think that maybe - just maybe - it's working.

I've also designed a board game, if you can believe it! A while back I designed a card-grid-battle game, and I loved the experience, despite not really having the resources to turn it into a real thing just yet (all I've got is my paper prototype and a chess board, but that's really all I need right now). This month, I was researching mystery/crime fiction game design, and one thing led to another. Next thing I know, I'm creating my own cat-and-mouse board game, complete with all the rules and two sets of cards (paper prototypes for now, of course).

I wish I had the resources to try and make these board games the real deal, at least for personal home use. I think my family would really enjoy them, and they'd make neat gifts to relatives and friends! But I'll just have to settle for designing them and shelving them until the time comes, just like their mystery-box predecessors.

Now that that's out of my system, though, and I've switched it all up, I'm ready to move forward and really progress in a way that is externally measurable.

The (New) New Plan

I want to work on small projects moving forward, and freeze all of my larger projects for a little while.

In other words, I want to take on smaller writing projects so that I can actually finish them and publish them, and move on to more small writing projects. At least for a little while, I think it would be nice to get more of my work out there. Right now, I recognize that this is what I need to rebuild my momentum and confidence in my craft.

My bigger projects aren't going anywhere; I can come back to them later, when I'm feeling up to the challenge, and up to the enormous time-investment that they require. But it's been more than seven years that I've been writing seriously (wow), and I want to have more of my writing out there. That means clearing off some of my plate - and the fastest things that I can clear off are my smaller writing projects.

At the same time, I've cleared up my Payhip, so there's a lot less there. Only three things remain: Apartment, its literary companion, and my Zombie March horror writing course. I want to focus on releasing substantial things rather than tiny worksheets, single short stories, and other super small projects. My current plan is to create bundles: to somehow bundle up the writing resources so that I can always update the bundle with new additions, to bundle up the short stories so that I can put out some short story collections, and so on.

So what can you expect?

Hopefully: more short stories, more small games (probably interactive fiction), and more podcast productions. Just - small things that I can create in 1-2 weeks maximum, and then move on with my life.

This puts me in a situation where I cannot allow scope creep to turn stories into monstrous projects, because I won't be able to finish a project a week if I do. This way, I'll hopefully start making up for lost time, and stay creative in a range of different ways while doing so.

And that's the plan!

There's a little more simmering on the stove, of course, but I'm a little uncertain about the next steps with regards to a couple of other things. Like, for example, switching to a new pen name moving forward. Or the fact that I actually really want to get rid of all of my social media (I've already dialed it down everywhere in the past few years, so really the next step might just be saying goodbye and closing shop.) And then there's the podcast; I can't wait to revamp the whole thing and get rid of the older episodes made by 2020 Me. Ideally, I would want to re-record and re-produce my favourite episodes, and put the rest away in favour of more relevant episodes.

So much to do, and so many decisions to take. I'll let you know how it goes. It it goes.

If you want to get sneak peeks at my projects, or helpful writing goodies, subscribe to my newsletter. This month's goodies are (1) the new and (ideally) improved Chapter 1 of Murder in Heliopolis, and (2) the Checklisting Method to Eating Elephants.

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